Great Harvest

The bass from the speakers seemed to strum in sync with Venessa Battle’s heart. Her system raced with Valium, codeine, barbiturates, alcohol and hashish. Stepping out onto the balcony of her apartment where she lived in Baltimore, Md., she looked up into the night sky.

“God, if You’re there, I want You in my life. But You’ve got to make it real to me.” She had made that cry to God numerous times. In truth, she didn’t believe He was going to answer.

Venessa had decided to commit suicide.

At 29, she felt worn out and ready for it all to end. She never would have thought it would end this way. But then, she’d had a rocky start.

The youngest of five children, Venessa had been raised in Fort Worth, Texas. Her mom had raised her and her siblings in the church—despite the fact there sometimes had been a disconnect between what they heard from the pulpit

and how they lived.

At 5 years old, Venessa’s mother had dressed her in a sailor suit and patent leather shoes and, under the watchful eyes of an airline stewardess, sent her to New Mexico to visit family. That’s when Venessa heard a voice say to her: You’re going to fly all over the world.

That was also around the time that her parents divorced.

A daddy’s girl, Venessa didn’t think she would survive her dad’s leaving. His absence had left a hole in her heart that she could not shake. By the time she started grade school, signs began to show. Pilfering through her sibling’s belongings one day, Venessa found and helped

June Read Through Thebible

Old Testament New Testament

Thu 1 2 Sam. 6:12-8:18 Acts 20

Fri 2 2 Sam. 9-11 Acts 21

Sat 3 2 Sam. 12:1-13:33

Sun 4 Ps. 71-72; Prov. 15:1-15

Mon 5 2 Sam. 13:34-15:23 Acts 22

Tue 6 2 Sam. 15:24-17:29 Acts 23

Wed 7 2 Sam. 18:1-19:30 Acts 24

Thu 8 2 Sam. 19:31-21:22 Acts 25

Fri 9 2 Sam. 22:1-23:7 Acts 26

Sat 10 2 Sam. 23:8-24:25

Sun 11 Ps. 73-74; Prov. 15:16-33

Mon 12 1 Kgs. 1:1-2:9 Acts 27

Tue 13 1 Kgs. 2:10-3:28 Acts 28

Wed 14 1 Kgs. 4:1-6:10 Rom. 1

Thu 15 1 Kgs. 6:11-7:39 Rom. 2

Fri 16 1 Kgs. 7:40-8:53 Rom. 3

Sat 17 1 Kgs. 8:54-10:23

Sun 18 Ps. 75-77; Prov. 16:1-17

Mon 19 1 Kgs. 10:24-12:15 Rom. 4

Tue 20 1 Kgs. 12:16-13:34 Rom. 5

Wed 21 1 Kgs. 14-15 Rom. 6

Thu 22 1 Kgs. 16:1-18:6 Rom. 7

Fri 23 1 Kgs. 18:7-19:21 Rom. 8

Sat 24 1 Kgs. 20:1-21:16

Sun 25 Ps. 78; Prov. 16:18-33

Mon 26 1 Kgs. 21:17-22:53 Rom. 9

Tue 27 2 Kgs. 1-3 Rom. 10

Wed 28 2 Kgs. 4:1-5:19 Rom. 11

Thu 29 2 Kgs. 5:20-7:20 Rom. 12

Fri 30 2 Kgs. 8-9 Rom. 13 herself to Valium. By the time she was 10, she was stealing drugs from medicine cabinets in the homes of people where she babysat.

Though she had started out doing well in school, it was a real struggle for Venessa. But because she was an athlete, her teachers routinely passed her on to the next grade. By the time she graduated from high school, Venessa was functionally illiterate. She read and wrote on a first-grade level. Her problem wasn’t just with letters and words. She could neither read nor write large numbers.

Stepping away from the balcony’s edge, Venessa went back inside and listened to some music as she contemplated her death. The bass notes seemed to come alive. Through the speakers, she heard these words:

You can die tonight, or you can live for Me.

Free at Last

“I wasn’t high anymore,” Venessa recalls. “I was instantly sober. I said, ‘Yes, Lord. Yes, I want to live for You.’

“My life changed radically after that. One of the first things the Lord directed me to do was go to the library. I checked out first-grade books. Then second-grade books. I kept going until I learned to read and write like an adult.

“In addition, every yearning for drugs and alcohol left me. When I was saved, God delivered me from even the temptation of drugs. When I said yes to God, I decided that if I were going to live for Him, I would do whatever He said. I determined that my story would be one of total obedience.”

Having grown up in Fort Worth, Venessa was familiar with Kenneth Copeland Ministries. When the Lord urged her to study faith, she began to immerse herself in the teachings of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, as well as other faith preachers like Jerry Savelle, Jesse Duplantis and Bill Winston.

“I studied faith until it became my spiritual heritage,” she said.

Venessa had lived in many cities, but the Lord directed her to move into the inner city in Baltimore.

“My family had been very multicultural,” she said. “We didn’t live in an African American neighborhood. We lived around all kinds of ethnicities. Our home was the one where everyone gathered. If you needed food, you came to our house.

“Now in the inner city, I witnessed shootouts in the streets. I saw people getting killed. One night I heard someone screaming. A woman had been locked in the trunk of a car.

“I asked the Lord why He had me there. He said, You don’t know how your people are living. It made me cry out for the African American people, especially men and boys.

“I asked God what He wanted me to do. He said, Adopt some kids. I thought maybe He forgot that I was 33 and single. But I wouldn’t say no to God. I became a foster parent for a few years. Then I got two little boys, Jonathan and Joshua, ages 3 and 4. I fell in love with them. I’d had them for about a year when their parents’ rights were severed. That’s when I adopted them.”

Venessa’s life was full. In addition to working full time, she was active in church, raising two boys and earning college credits. She was also called into the ministry. Over the years, Venessa earned a bachelor’s degree in Christian education, and later a master’s degree in Christian counseling.

Now that she was free from drugs and alcohol, she loved to learn.

Coming to understand that people in other countries value education, Venessa eventually earned four doctoral degrees—which she says has opened many doors for her with governments and people.

A New Call

In 1997, Venessa was offered a new job and she and her two sons moved to Georgia. There, she started a Bible study which, over time, grew to become New Gate International Church—a church filled with praying people who heard prayed-out mysteries and often heard deep things from God.

On one occasion, Venessa found herself praying about the American Colonization Society.

What was that? she wondered. She’d never heard of the American Colonization Society.

Upon researching the name, Venessa learned that the society, which was also known as the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States when it was first organized in the early 1800s, was a national organization dedicated to promoting the release of the enslaved and the settlement of free Blacks in West Africa—specifically in the colony of Liberia. The group transported about 12,000 Black people to Liberia over the course of its existence.

In addition to researching the subject, Venessa also talked to Liberians in her church. Among other things she learned, Venessa was told that once they were in Liberia, the freed slaves did to others what had happened to them.

“Although they didn’t enslave people, they took away their land,” Venessa said. “They destroyed their government. They created such havoc that it resulted in a civil war that killed 200,000 people. The Liberians called those people Americos.

“Lord, why are You showing me this?”

You’ve got to fix it. Wait. What?

“I’m just one woman. I don’t have a government or a huge organization behind me. How am I supposed to fix Liberia?”

The Apology

Years later, in 2012, sun glinted off the window of the airplane as it made a lazy turn to approach the runway in Liberia. Venessa had scheduled an appointment with the first female president of Liberia. However, she was pulled away. Instead, she had meetings with the president pro tempore, the speaker of the house, the House of Representatives and some church groups. In each meeting she was asked, “Why have you come to us?”

Kneeling before them, she said, “I’ve come to apologize. My bloodline is with the Americos. I’ve come to apologize for what my people did to yours.”

As she repented, people wept.

One man said, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life.”

The response was so profound that the government officials asked her to come back to do the same thing in a stadium filled with people. She agreed to return.

“What I learned in Liberia is that if the God of the universe sends you anywhere, you have all the backup you need,” says Venessa. “There is no bigger government. No more powerful organization. I believe that my obedience to that assignment set me up for more revelation from God.

“Back in the U.S., I attended a meeting where I heard the most incredible thing,” she recalled.

“In 2 Samuel 6, King David was moving the Ark of the Covenant when Uzzah touched it and died. Unwilling to take the Ark into Jerusalem, King David sent it to ObedEdom. This man, the speaker, said that ObedEdom was African. Most African Americans have never seen themselves having an identity in the Bible.

“Obed-Edom wasn’t Jewish. He was a Gittite, a converted Philistine. Earlier, when the Ark was in the hands of the Philistines, God brought great judgment on them. They returned it to Israel. But here was another Philistine who had a different experience. Instead of judgment, he and his entire household were blessed. This man knew how to worship and be blessed in the presence of the Lord.

“Later, in 1 Chronicles, the Levites were established over the temple. Except for one family. Obed-Edom and 68 of his family members were given positions as gatekeepers in the service of the temple. They weren’t Levites or Israelites. They loved the presence of God.”

Keturah’s Story

Venessa phoned a friend who was a rabbi. “Did you know that Obed-Edom was African?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “If you’re driving, pull over and stop.”

Venessa stopped her car.

“Open your Bible to Genesis 25. Read where it says that Abraham again took a wife, and her name was Keturah. Now listen, Keturah was an African woman.”

Something broke in Venessa as those words dropped into her spirit.

“For years, African American people have felt that our only identity was as slaves,” Venessa said. “That was our lot in life. Now we read that the father of our faith married an African woman and had six sons.

“That chapter goes on to say that Keturah’s sons were strong men. Abraham was afraid that when he died, they would take over. So, like he’d done with Ishmael and Hagar, he sent them away.

“We have a biblical identity!”

From that revelation, Venessa authored a book, titled Keturah Revealed: Finding Your Jewish Roots.

Keturah Farms

In 2019, Venessa flew to Kenya where she spoke at a church of 200 pastors and leaders. As she preached the Keturah message, the people responded with laughter and with tears. One pastor, she said, described what he’d seen in the spirit: “Instead of just standing in God’s presence, people climbed into His lap.”

“I’d been to Liberia, so I understood poverty,” Venessa recalls. “But something was di erent in Kenya. They’d had heavy rains which potted the roads. As we drove from place to place so that I could preach, I saw children dipping their cups into muddy puddles to drink.

“It broke my heart. I thought, God, You’ve got to do something. This can’t happen on my watch.

“I talked to the local pastors. Most of them had land and knew how to farm. They didn’t have money for seed and fertilizer. I knew we had to help them. For a couple of hundred dollars, we bought 50 baby chicks. That’s when I got a vision for farms that would produce food to feed many people. I called them Keturah farms. We started several in Kenya and in other places in Africa.”

The following year, in 2020, Venessa did not return to Kenya, but the group she had previously traveled there with sent pictures.

“Corn was everywhere!” Venessa said. “The people were almost starving in 2019 when we started the farms. Once COVID hit, without those crops there would have been no food. Those people would have died.”

A Deeper Faith

About that time, the Lord impressed Venessa to reconnect with her faith roots.

“Luke 18:8 kept circling my mind: ‘Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?’” (New King James Version)

“I thought I was a woman of great faith,” Venessa says. “Yes, my faith was strong, but it wasn’t where it needed to be. God let me know that I needed to take a deep dive back into faith. I became a Partner with KCM. I also began watching VICTORY Channel™ daily. My faith rose immediately. Even more amazing, God began doing supernatural things through me on a regular basis.”

In 2021, Venessa was a guest on a TV show. Before they went on air, they reviewed some of the things that would be discussed.

“How many Keturah Farms are you going to have?” she was asked.

Venessa hadn’t thought about it.

“Maybe 500,” she said.

The mild-mannered host turned into a di erent man.

“Is that all you can believe for? That’s all you can believe the Creator of the universe to do? No, no, no! You’re going to say 1 billion!”

“Afterward, I was shaking and trembling,” Venessa remembers. “When he asked me on the air, I shouted, ‘A billion!’

“Later, God let me know that the number of farms wasn’t as important as the number of people fed.”

Today, Venessa’s sons, Jonathan and Joshua, are 30 and 31. Over the past 30 years, Venessa has ministered extensively in 33 nations. She has been the USA Chancellor for Kingdom Covenant Leadership Institute led by Dr. Pat Francis in Ontario, Canada. She is a registered mediator with the Georgia Supreme Courts, where she receives court-appointed cases to mediate for the county and state. She reaches thousands of people through her television program on Preach The Word Network. She has also completed a 50-state tour leading people groups into healing and reconciliation.

Last year, Venessa was visiting at KCM and listening to Kenneth Copeland preach when she heard him say: “I’m going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m going to preach that He saves, He heals, He baptizes with His Spirit and that He’s coming again…. I’m going to preach it from the top of the world to the bottom and all the way around the middle. And I’m not going to compromise.”

“I knew right then that I would help with that vision,” says Venessa. “Those words inspired me to believe God to feed a billion people, and that eventually Keturah Farms will not just be in Africa but in other locations around the world. Based on that, I wrote a new book and filmed a documentary, Keturah Farms: A Mission To Feed a Billion People.

“I thank God for this ministry. For the faith they have taught around the world and for the vision to change the world. I will never stop studying faith. It takes great faith to reach a great harvest. And the world is ripe for harvest.”